Old Paths and New Journeys

In Isaiah 42:16, God says, "I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, And crooked places straight. These things I will do for them, And not forsake them."

New Journey Ahead

Have you ever found yourself on a major detour, on a road you never desired to travel? Did you start comparing all the bumps and twisting, narrow, sharp curves to what you were comfortably traveling on? Have you found yourself looking over the path you were happily traveling down trying to convince yourself it was "perfect" just because the new path is unfamiliar, maybe more painful, and definitely uncomfortable? They aren't! No path, old or new, is ever perfect. God's new journeys are His perfect path for us because of all that awaits us on the path He has laid out. But it's not without some bumps, bruises and maybe even some scars. But it's definitely going to be better than the path we choose to travel on our own AND better than living in the past on the broken down, dirty paths of old! See, old paths are meant to appear easy, smooth and "perfect" when we look BACK on them. It's in the past. Old experiences. Old lessons. Old selves. Old life. There's an old saying that took me some time to actually fully understand, "Familiarity breeds  contempt." Think on that for a moment. It applies to many, many things that us mortals get a tad bit too comfortable with. Being stuck in the past, in the "old ways" of things, stunts our growth, our lessons, blessings and our witness. If we stay in the past, if we live in the past, then how can we expect to enjoy the new journeys that are inevitably awaiting us? God has many different journeys for each of us. Isn't it better to want and wait for His, than to stay in a rut, on a beaten path that's leading nowhere, and missing out on all that He has to give to us? We can't know the paths, the new journeys, if we refuse to be led on the detours of this life. We can't see the Light that he has made from the darkness if we don't first take our own steps in that darkness, one step at a time, trusting He will light our way.

Detours can be a very scary thing, really. Let's say you have planned the perfect trip. You have everything packed and ready to go. You have the perfect directions printed out, or plugged into your GPS, with all the anticipated stops. You know approximately what time you will arrive, give or take a few minutes for traffic or construction along the way. You load the car up and off you go. Everything unfamiliar to you is speeding by as you venture down the highways, happily heading towards your destination. Things seem to be going smoothly, nothing can ruin your vacation!! Then suddenly, without warning, traffic slows down to a snails pace. You see big signs ahead, "DETOUR" and you begin to feel a little anxious and maybe even fret because you haven't PLANNED for this. As you draw closer to the "detour" panic sets in because it's going to take you off the route that you KNEW would get you to your destination without a hitch. The new detour is unknown. You have no way of knowing how far out of the way it will take you, how long it will add to your calculated time of arrival, and, worse, you aren't sure if you will get lost and lose your way ON the detour! But then, once you get on the detour and the new route, and you get a little comfortable, you begin to follow the signs, trusting the construction people have placed them along the proper route to get you back on your intended path. Once you give your trust away to the signs, you begin to sit back, relax a bit, and enjoy the scenic route. You can relax a bit more because you begin to realize the detour is where you're supposed to be and all of the roads you had to take, with all of the signs you had to follow, WILL lead you to your destination.

Something I've learned along all of my own detours is that on the old paths, the ones I THOUGHT were perfect, I lost more than I gained. Every single new detour that God led me down and on, I gained so much more! I also saw just how much MORE I needed Him to guide my way, to light my way! Sure! They were more painful, more bumpy, narrower and definitely not what I ever signed up for, BUT, it was where HE wanted me, and that was good enough for ME! I have been "detoured" plenty in my life and through those old paths and detours, I learned not to look back so much. I never did live in the past anyway because it was such a waste of what God wanted for me that I spent too much energy trying to relive the "what-ifs." I am no different than anyone else, I DID try to keep looking back and living in the past when I was younger, a new creation. Always living in the past, or being too comfortable with it, robs you of so much more!!! It isn't too interesting either to be engaged in conversation with someone who only talks about the past, what could have been, would have been or should have been. I am not talking about a "reminiscent" kind of a thing. I'm not talking about helping someone get through something traumatic from their past, or helping someone see their choices weren't good. I'm not even talking about someone who, on the occasion, takes a look back over their lives for perspective. I'm talking about a constant reliving of things without ever moving forward. I'm talking about someone who only knows the past, always blaming the past, always BEING in the past. Those that find it simply impossible living in the present being grateful for what is in front of them right now. It's drama. It's exhausting. And those kinds of people attract their own kind. They seek out others like them which in turn enables them to remain in their cycle. It's something I had to learn the hard way with someone I used to know. God had to yank me by my "hair" to get me to end the friendship because it was squashing my spirit! It was draining me beyond what I saw in myself. And why? Because they weren't changing, not truly. They were a constant menagerie of blame, never accepting their own responsibility in the outcome of things. They weren't going to put forth any real effort to do anything about their situation and I saw just how comfortable they were being the person they were, not surrendering their spirit fully to Jesus to transform them. I knew two people that stood out for living in the past and will always stand out, that i can say lived in the past and knew nothing else. Always doing the "should-have" "could-have" and "would-have" but more so being caught in the cycle of believing Satan's lies. That's the sad thing. That's the worst. I'm not sure where they are in their walk today, if they're still blaming God or blaming others, or if they will ever surrender their lives fully, but I still pray for both of them. Old paths are meant to remain in the past.....

It is here that I will say that our memories of the past are oftentimes better than they actually were! The happy memories we have are clearly happy ones coming from happy times. But our perception of those events is what dictates those emotions. So, I'm going to talk just a little bit about memory recall and how fascinating it really is to know how the same memory can change ever so slightly each time it's recalled. The amount of research that has been done on the brain and its function to recall a memory or event is truly fascinating and for those of you who are as interested in the behaviors and understanding of people as I am, one should seek out some of these astounding findings! It's too lengthy to teach in this forum however, I'll condense it only for the sake of this particular post! Recall or retrieval of memory or events refers specifically to the subsequent re-accessing of those events or information from the past, which ultimately have been previously encoded and stored in the brain. This is commonly referred to as remembering. During a recall process, the brain literally "replays" a pattern of neural activity that was originally generated in response to a particular event, echoing the brain's "perception" of the real event. Perception, I might add, is exactly that, perceptive. Perception changes with thoughts and actions and can alter slightly or dramatically how one sees, remembers or hears something. In fact, there isn't any real solid distinction between the act of remembering and the act of thinking. And we know thinking produces thoughts and thoughts are fleeting and changing. But anyway, these specific replays aren't identical to the original experience, otherwise, we'd not know the difference between the genuine experience or the memory OF the experience. The replays are actually mixed with an "awareness" of the CURRENT situation that one is replaying the memory in. Fascinating!!

Basically, based on the current situation and environment of which a memory is recalled, it will be mixed with that awareness and can alter the memory once it's stored again! So the next time it's recalled it could slightly change. One conclusion that was made of this is that memories aren't actually frozen in time so new information and suggestions can likely become incorporated into old memories over time. Thus, the very act of remembering can be clearly thought of as an act of creative re-imagination. Re-imagination? Yes. Memories aren't stored in our brains like books on a shelf or even like self-contained collections of recording or photographs. There is a piecing together of sorts that must take place when we recall a memory. They may be better thought of as a collage or even a jigsaw puzzle. They involve many different elements stored in disparate parts of the brain that seemingly are linking together associations and neural networks. Say if we assume that the "purpose" of human memory is to use our past events to guide our future actions, then keeping a perfect and complete record of every single past event wouldn't be a necessary, useful or efficient way of achieving this. In most people, some specific memories may be given up, forgotten, repressed or converted into general, overall knowledge (i.e. converted from episodic to semantic memories) as part of the ongoing recall/re-consolidation process, so then we are able to generalize from an experience.

It's also highly possible, and likely, that false memories (or at least wrongly interpreted or perceived memories) may be created during the recall process, thus be carried forward thereafter. Research into false memory creation is particularly associated with Elizabeth Loftus' work in the 1970's. One's emotional state, mental state and awareness, and situation can all play a part of creating a false memory, or detail recall addition/elimination. Among many other experiments in this area that she has conducted, she showed just how precise wording of a specific question about a memory or memories can dramatically influence the recall and re-creation of memories, (commonly referred to currently as "leading") and can even permanently change those memories for future recalls - a phenomenon which is not lost on the legal profession. For example, "Did "the car hit" or  did "the car smash into" the truck?" The words "hit" and "smash" clearly has different meanings and impacts on individuals and could easily "create" a different scenario than what actually took place! It's even thought that it may be possible, up to a certain point, to choose to forget something, by blocking out unwanted memories during recall, a process achieved by frontal lobe activity, which inhibits the laying down or re-consolidation of a memory. I've made a reference to this theory in another post using witnesses of a car accident. Three people can witness the SAME exact incident but their "perception" of what took place will inevitably vary based on their own trauma, situation, emotional attachment and mental state of mind at the time of the accident. Some "hard evidence" will all be relayed from each member. But as the days go on, the memories become a little harder to recall exactly the way it was recalled the moment it happened. The longer time goes by, the less recall precision will be achieved without some daunting changes taking place. Remember..."PERCEPTION IS REALITY!" 

The Old Way

So you see, living in the past isn't really all it's cut out to be! That's where Satan resides. That's where lies reside. That's where mistakes and regrets and convictions reside. It's not where God wants you to reside! He has created a new creation in you. He wants you to live TODAY and look to your future for all that He has planned for you! The old paths aren't nearly as exciting as the detours to the new journeys! We aren't really ever prepared for detours and I suppose that's why they're called detours. They happen at the last minute, without warning and we need to adapt quickly and follow all the "signs" to our new destination. Maybe the detour you're on is actually the ROAD in the new journey that will lead you AWAY from the rut of your past old paths! God invites all of His children to ask Him to change the things that we long to be different, to pray for His direction in the detour and draw near to Him in prayer. He calls us to persevere. He invites us to trust that our prayers will make a difference. But at the same time, God bids us all to accept where we are right here, right now. He asks us to let Him meet us in the darkness so He can shine His Light to guide us. He wants us to find comfort in His presence. We need to see Him as more important than any change in our circumstances!

Let the old road be gone. Let it stay under the dust of your feet. Let the past be the past. Let the old paths remain in the old days so that the detours that Jesus Christ will put you on, will excite you as you start a new journey! In our heads, in our minds, remember, the "old paths" of our past seem much better than they were. The past will often be remembered as better than it actually was. The Israelites actually did that too when they complained after they were delivered from slavery. They were saying, "Hey, we remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and garlic. But now our strength is dried up and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at." Numbers 11:4-6, "Now the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving; so the children of Israel also wept again and said: "Who will give us meat to eat? v5) We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; v6) but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!" The Israelites neglected to mention that even though they had food, they were still slaves. In Egypt, their lives weren't perfect! They had continually cried out to the Lord God to deliver them from slavery. So don’t look back on the past and assume it was perfect. It wasn’t. Mine wasn’t perfect either. All of us need to open our eyes and see what's all around us. We need to remember that God goes before us and HAS already went before us! We don't need to fear anything, any new detour, any new journey, or even letting go of the past, because He knows what is up ahead of us!!!

Detours may seem scary because they are part of the unknown, the unfamiliar but they can lead to blessings and a wonderful scenic route! Detours on road trips often mean "Road Closed." In life, it means the same. The road is closed for a reason. Danger. Warnings. Construction. So when I'm put on a detour, I'm OK with it because I know the Lord can see before me things that I can't and I trust that He will lead me from the danger that may be lying up ahead by putting me on new journey through a detour. The Lord closes roads or doors all the time. He knows best. Why would I want to continue pounding on the door, or crashing through the closed roads when my safety is with Him! Going where He wants me to go, WHEN He wants me to go and WHY He wants me to go! Detours can be small inconveniences from Jesus or great big, mind blowing incidences!!! Maybe His sole purpose is to comfort you and bless you at the very moment you are taken on the detour. Maybe the ONLY way you would have received that blessing or comfort was to TAKE the detour. If you weren't willing, then His hand forces you so you KNOW He is with you and hears you! Maybe His sole purpose is a life changing, life altering experience so the detour will be a bit more than an inconvenience, with bumps, bruises, scrapes and wounds. That's OK too! The blessing awaits on the other side of the detour!!! Don't miss it just because you are comfortable!

Many Christians, and non-Christians alike, don't like to think God sends us on detours. No matter how small or big they are! So, ask yourself, "Can God create detours?" ABSOLUTELY!!! This is answered clearly in the Book of Exodus, which is the story of the Israelites as they were led from slavery out of Egypt. Let's look at specifically Exodus 13:17-18, "Then it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, “Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt.” 18 So God led the people around by way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. And the children of Israel went up in orderly ranks out of the land of Egypt." Of course, the Red Sea was the site of one of God's greatest displays of power: the parting of the waters so that the fleeing Israelites could pass on dry ground. Without a doubt, God planned that detour. We've all been redirected by God at one point, many times in my life, I must admit! Think about it. Even Paul encountered a divine detour. The Holy Spirit kept him from preaching the Word in the province of Asia. Really? How can that make sense? Well, Paul’s intentions were to further the gospel but God, on the other hand, had very different plans. We can envision something for our lives, envisioning "perfect" plans, but then God intervenes, taking us on a detour to fulfill HIS plans! Directing us on His paths!

Detours are God’s perfected way of preparing our broken character for the destiny He plans for our lives. He designs each of our detours with personalized precision in order to chip away those rougher, jagged edges that's in our lives that need to be smoothed away. God places us in the detours of our lives so He can iron out all the wrinkles in our lives and characters so He can be glorified when we arrive at our destiny! Just be certain that if you feel like your life is on a detour, great or small, you can bet God is using that  detour to shape and mold you into becoming more like Jesus. I think that's worth the detour and new journey, don't you?!? He wants to iron, mold, transform and chisel out those things in our lives so that we are prepared for the destiny our Lord God has planned for us! Even before we were born! How amazing is THAT!?! However, the enemy of your soul, Satan, our adversary, wants to kill, steal, and destroy your life, because he ultimately wants to destroy God’s destiny FOR your life. John 10:10, "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." Some of you need to stop despising the detours that you have been set in your life and start discovering your true destiny IN them. There's much to be discovered, much to be seen, learned and uncovered. When things don't go as planned, and oftentimes they won't, when life doesn't deal you the hand you expected, and oftentimes it won't, when the clouds seem to cover the sunshine everywhere you go and you can't seem to get a break, don't get defeated by it because my brothers and sisters, God sees the detour as the perfect roadway to your destiny! It's only a hurdle if that's the way you perceive it! It's only a roadblock if YOU don't allow the Lord to remove it and help you get over it!

God sees the detour as the pathway to build your character. These detours into a new journey are God's way of making the journey sweeter than we can imagine and our celebratory praise much louder! God can use all of the difficulties of our lives to advance us to a greatness beyond our own comprehension. Of course it's not the pathway we expected and is a much different route than we anticipated, but even though it may be a little longer, bumpier and more scenic, it's what God wants for us for that particular journey in time! That's why it's called a detour!

The next time you're moving along nice and smooth, when things appear to be comfortable and steady, and all of the sudden you are thrown off course into a detour, just know that Jesus has went before you, will not leave you and enjoy the New Journey! So much is waiting on the other side of the detour to make it all worth your while!



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